As mentioned in my recent AOG thread (I'm all fixed up now thanks to VAF), I destroyed my nose wheel tire, tube and fairing on a hard landing a couple of days ago. Now that I've stopped shaking, ran through the experience in my head too many times, talked it through a few times and analyzed my data logs, I thought I'd recount what happened and what I found out. I apologize in advance, this is going to be a long post.
A little background, I'm a mid life crisis pilot and builder. Got my PPL 3 years ago, managed to build about 240 hours total time. Finished my RV-9A last summer and have 70 hours and 100 landings on it. The incident trip was a 3 day leg stretch to the Denver area, my first trip into the US and first multi day trip. The incident flight was from Billings, MT to Lethbridge, AB to clear customs. 2 hour trip, coming after my 2 hour initial leg out of Rapid City. This was my first flight into Lethbridge and it was the 5th unfamiliar airport of the trip.
My initial approach was to runway 23, 200' wide (first time for me) and I had a shifty quartering tailwind. In looking at the logs later, winds went from 126 at 7 at 500 AGL to 59 at 5 on the ground. On top of this I was fast, 87kt over the numbers. This was already a recipe for trouble. The approach ended in a well executed bounce to go around, no second hit and quick reaction to add in full power.
My second approach was to the same runway, a little better speed (78) but still too fast. This one bounced as well and I had go around power in within 2 seconds. FSS gave me runway 12 for my next pass, winds were a little better for it. This is 150' wide so the sight picture needs an adjustment.
My third approach was decent, still a little fast and ended with hard contact on the mains. I read that as a bounce and immediately put in the power. The incredulity of my situation was hitting hard and the nagging voice in my head started shouting that I'd forgotten how to land. FSS was treating me like an emergency now (so I found out later when I paid them a visit).
My fourth approach was the one that wrecked things. This is the "how to". One decision. I hit hard on the mains again and decided to override everything I knew and pushed the nose down to try and save it. The logs showed that I hit the mains with 1.5 g at a pitch of +1.3 and in 3/4 of a second hit the nose wheel at 2.4 g at a pitch of -5.4. I think I anticipated the bounce and had already pushed forward before the initial hit. This bucking landing hit happened again a couple of seconds later with 2.6 g on the nose and a 13 degree pitch change. If the first one didn't smash things, this one surely did. I finally decided to do what I should have done, pushed in the power and got out of there.
On that fourth climbout, FSS asked me if I would like to fly away for the airport for a few minutes to collect myself. It was just what I needed to hear and I did that, all the while talking through the landing process out loud. After about 6 minutes I requested a long final for 12, thinking that a long stable approach would give me the best outcome. Finally, 30 minutes after my first approach I managed to get the landing I so desperately needed. It wasn't pretty, still hard and I had a couple of nose oscillations after the mains stuck. I taxied in and declared my day done (we had planned the 1 hour flight home after clearing customs) before finding the damage that formally ended my day. In the end, the tube was punctured, the inside sides of the tire were delaminated, the axle bolt was slightly bent, the wheel pant had 3 large chunks blown out and the leg fairing was cracked with a couple of popped rivets. They closed the runway behind me as soon as I found the hole in the pant and they found the pieces.
I still need to wrap my head around my landings, my landing back home yesterday wasn't very good either. I am sure of a few things. Firstly, my wheel pants went on recently, I only had 3 landings on them before starting on this trip. The pants bought me 12 knots at cruise and the speed management is a whole new beast that I need to get a handle on before any further flight. Secondly, my hard hits/bounces are coming from failing to counteract/avoid sudden sink over the runway. Lastly, no matter how frustrated, angry, scared, tired, confused, anxious I get, NEVER try to save a bounce by pushing the nose forward.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. This post is mostly for my own benefit as I work through this, but since I'm not the first or the last to experience this, I thought it was worth sharing and discussing. I'm going to take a short break from flying so I don't have recent memory haunting my decision making. Then I'm going up and spending a good hour entering and exiting slow flight at a safe altitude before getting some circuits in and relearning my landings and reclaiming my confidence.
A little background, I'm a mid life crisis pilot and builder. Got my PPL 3 years ago, managed to build about 240 hours total time. Finished my RV-9A last summer and have 70 hours and 100 landings on it. The incident trip was a 3 day leg stretch to the Denver area, my first trip into the US and first multi day trip. The incident flight was from Billings, MT to Lethbridge, AB to clear customs. 2 hour trip, coming after my 2 hour initial leg out of Rapid City. This was my first flight into Lethbridge and it was the 5th unfamiliar airport of the trip.
My initial approach was to runway 23, 200' wide (first time for me) and I had a shifty quartering tailwind. In looking at the logs later, winds went from 126 at 7 at 500 AGL to 59 at 5 on the ground. On top of this I was fast, 87kt over the numbers. This was already a recipe for trouble. The approach ended in a well executed bounce to go around, no second hit and quick reaction to add in full power.
My second approach was to the same runway, a little better speed (78) but still too fast. This one bounced as well and I had go around power in within 2 seconds. FSS gave me runway 12 for my next pass, winds were a little better for it. This is 150' wide so the sight picture needs an adjustment.
My third approach was decent, still a little fast and ended with hard contact on the mains. I read that as a bounce and immediately put in the power. The incredulity of my situation was hitting hard and the nagging voice in my head started shouting that I'd forgotten how to land. FSS was treating me like an emergency now (so I found out later when I paid them a visit).
My fourth approach was the one that wrecked things. This is the "how to". One decision. I hit hard on the mains again and decided to override everything I knew and pushed the nose down to try and save it. The logs showed that I hit the mains with 1.5 g at a pitch of +1.3 and in 3/4 of a second hit the nose wheel at 2.4 g at a pitch of -5.4. I think I anticipated the bounce and had already pushed forward before the initial hit. This bucking landing hit happened again a couple of seconds later with 2.6 g on the nose and a 13 degree pitch change. If the first one didn't smash things, this one surely did. I finally decided to do what I should have done, pushed in the power and got out of there.
On that fourth climbout, FSS asked me if I would like to fly away for the airport for a few minutes to collect myself. It was just what I needed to hear and I did that, all the while talking through the landing process out loud. After about 6 minutes I requested a long final for 12, thinking that a long stable approach would give me the best outcome. Finally, 30 minutes after my first approach I managed to get the landing I so desperately needed. It wasn't pretty, still hard and I had a couple of nose oscillations after the mains stuck. I taxied in and declared my day done (we had planned the 1 hour flight home after clearing customs) before finding the damage that formally ended my day. In the end, the tube was punctured, the inside sides of the tire were delaminated, the axle bolt was slightly bent, the wheel pant had 3 large chunks blown out and the leg fairing was cracked with a couple of popped rivets. They closed the runway behind me as soon as I found the hole in the pant and they found the pieces.
I still need to wrap my head around my landings, my landing back home yesterday wasn't very good either. I am sure of a few things. Firstly, my wheel pants went on recently, I only had 3 landings on them before starting on this trip. The pants bought me 12 knots at cruise and the speed management is a whole new beast that I need to get a handle on before any further flight. Secondly, my hard hits/bounces are coming from failing to counteract/avoid sudden sink over the runway. Lastly, no matter how frustrated, angry, scared, tired, confused, anxious I get, NEVER try to save a bounce by pushing the nose forward.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. This post is mostly for my own benefit as I work through this, but since I'm not the first or the last to experience this, I thought it was worth sharing and discussing. I'm going to take a short break from flying so I don't have recent memory haunting my decision making. Then I'm going up and spending a good hour entering and exiting slow flight at a safe altitude before getting some circuits in and relearning my landings and reclaiming my confidence.